Easy Mexican Casserole
I always say that Mexican food is my favorite food, but in reality it probably isn’t. I only really like nachos and fajitas. It doesn’t really matter though, most Mexican food places have both of them on the menu. Even knowing this, for some reason, when I’m looking for recipes, I always seem to look for something that falls under the Mexican food umbrella. To be honest, I’m not really sure what actually makes something Mexican food versus just regular food…I just knew I wanted to make a casserole that could last me for about a week. Of course, I looked on Pinterest for the easiest “Mexican” casseroles I could find. This one was adapted from a pin from Trickchef’s blog. I don’t know that this could be defined as a true casserole or if it is more of a cooked seven layer dip. Either way, it was really yummy and I highly recommend it for people on the go, like I seem to be!
Ingredients:
1 pound lean ground beef
2 cups salsa
3 cups tortilla chips, crushed
2 cups sour cream
1 (2 ounce) can sliced black olives, drained
1/2 cup chopped green onion
1/2 cup chopped fresh tomato
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
Brown the ground beef until there is no more pink in the middle. Add salsa to the meat after it’s cooked and let it simmer until there is no liquid.
Spray pam on the bottom of the casserole dish, then crush up some chips to cover the bottom of the dish.
Put the meat sauce over the chips
Cover the meat with sour cream
Cover the sour cream with olives, tomatoes, green onions, cilantro
Cover with cheese and put in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes
Take out of the oven and get ready to chow down!
This was a delicious meal. It lasted about a week for me. I doubt it will last longer than that for a party of dos.
Nutribullet Salsa
I love my Nutribullet. I have been making a smoothie every morning for breakfast since I got it. I have been wanting to try something different with it and decided salsa made the most sense for someone that craves chips all the time. This was really an easy recipe and a lot of fun to make. The salsa should last for at least 7 days, but I finished it in 2.
Ingredients:
1/4 cup red onion
2 jalapeños, seeds removed (or you can keep them in for more heat)
1 tsp of minced garlic
1, 14.5 oz can of Diced Tomatoes
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cumin
1 tsp lime juice
small handful of cilantro
Put the ingredients in the nutribullet and blend until you get your desired consistency.
Pour in a bowl and enjoy with some chips!
Hummus Crusted Chicken and Vegetables
I love to ride my bike, but I don’t feel safe riding on the streets, so I didn’t ride much when I was in Austin. Since I’ve been back in Dallas, I have been trying to take advantage of being so close to White Rock Lake. I rode around the lake this weekend, and saw a link to another trail. I tried the new route called the Santa Fe Trail. I went as far as Beacon St. and decided to turn around. I still have no idea how far that trail goes. Once I got back to where I started, I made my way around the lake fighting the wind, but that silly old wind had nothing on me. I beat the wind! It was a lot of fun and great exercise. I think I’ll try to ride at least one time a week to get a little variations to my workouts.
This is by far the best main dish recipe that I’ve made from Pinterest. I adapted this recipe from the Gimmesomeoven pin. I never thought of cooking with hummus, but now I think it will become a standard on my grocery shopping list. Not only was it good on the chicken, it made the vegetables taste AMAZING!!
Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts
Hummus (I used the garlic flavored one)
Squash
Okra
2 Lemons
1 tsp. of Paprika
Salt and Pepper to taste
Put a layer of squash and okra in a casserole dish.
Put chicken breast on top of the vegetables
Cover chicken in Hummus
Sprinkle paprika over the chicken, add salt and pepper and squeeze lemons all over the dish. Make sure to get some of the spices on the vegetables
Bake in the oven at 450 for about 30 – 45 minutes
Dinner is served!! YUM!!
I wish I would have added more vegetables to my dish. Next time I’m going to add zucchini and tomatoes. I will also put a larger quantity of vegetables in the pan. The vegetables were SOOO good.
Italian chicken
I really need to start eating a little more healthy. I’ve been enjoying my time back in Dallas so much that I haven’t been watching what I eat. It’s time to get back on track and what better way than to eat chicken.
Ingredients:
Chicken
Italian dressing
Pour about half the bottle of Italian Dressing on the chicken and cover.
Cook in the oven at 350 for about 45 minutes.
Sunday Breakfast
Now that I’m back in Dallas, I have to take my turn making breakfast for everyone on Sundays. I am getting much better at cooking and almost had my breakfast timed out perfectly. Had it not been for my breakfast casserole taking longer than it was supposed to, I would have had breakfast on the table for everyone right when they got here. It ended up taking a lot longer than the recipe said it would. It might be because I doubled the recipe I found at The Real Housewife blog. It really didn’t matter though. It all tasted great!!
Ingredients:
- 1 Pound Sausage
- 8 Eggs
- 2 Cups Bisquick
- 2 Cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese
- 4 Cups Milk
Brown the Sausage
Blend the eggs, milk, and bisquick
Put the sausage on the bottom of the casserole dish
Cover with cheese (sorry about the blurry picture)
Dump the egg mix on to the sausage and eggs
Put in the oven at 350 for about 45 minutes. Stick a fork in it to make sure that it is cooked all the way through.
Enjoy!
Detox Cleanse
My mom woke up around midnight a couple days before Christmas and decided that she couldn’t live without a Nutribullet. I talked her in to waiting until morning so we could go to Bed Bath and Beyond, since they always have a coupon. It turned out that I was right and not only was it cheaper than it was on the infomercial, we also saved 20%. After she got hers, I decided I really needed one too. I really don’t like eating fruits or vegetables. I can survive on chips, cheese, meat, and water. As I get older, I’ve been thinking that I may want to eat a little better. That’s where the Nutribullet comes in. I can blend a bunch of different fruits and vegetables together and be done with all that in one meal!
Once I got the Nutribullet, I decided that I would try the Dr. Oz Three Day Detox Cleanse. Several of my friends were trying it, so I didn’t want to be left out. The first and last days were really the hardest. I don’t know if I was ever really hungry, but I wanted to chew some food. I also picked the worst days to start this. We had professional development for two of the days. This means everyone goes out to eat. I went ahead and went with them and just drank my smoothie. The recipes are in the link, but you won’t want to make these if you are trying for a “tasty” smoothie!
Rolo bites
My mom’s idea of cooking for the holidays is ordering all the food, picking it up, then bringing it to the party. That can get really expensive, so my sister and I said we would make the food ourselves this year and she could pay us. We were only (half) joking about the pay us part… We did manage to make my corn casserole, green bean casserole, stove top stuffing, and these rolo bites on our own and everyone seemed to love it all! My sister also made a turkey and a ham, but I can’t claim that I helped with that at all.
It was extra exciting this year because it SNOWED on Christmas in Dallas. The weatherman said that it hadn’t snowed in Dallas on Christmas for 83 years. I’m so glad my niece and nephew got to have that experience, even though they probably won’t remember it since they are so young.
Ingredients:
Pretzels (the waffle looking ones work best)
rolos
pecans
m&m’s
Put the pretzels on a cookie sheet, put a rolo in the center of the pretzel and put in the oven at 250 degrees for 4 – 5 minutes. 
Add an m&m or a pecan on the top of the semi melted pretzel/rolo.
Put in the fridge for about twenty minutes or so to cool them off. Put on a plate and enjoy!!
Sausage Waffles
One of the gifts from the cookie exchange was the movie Elf with a bottle of syrup. The movie got stolen from me, but I got stuck with the syrup. Since I had syrup, I had to make some waffles. I really liked the idea of making sausage waffles, so I thought I would give it a try and make the people at work try it with me. I think everyone that tried this is now a fan of sausage waffles!
Ingredients:
Waffle mix…I used bisquick and their recipe
Ground sausage
Syrup
Butter
Make the waffle mix
Put Sausage on the waffle iron and then add the waffle mix on top. Cook until brown.
Add butter and syrup and eat!
Box of Chili
It’s December and the weather has been really warm prior to this week. Since I knew it was supposed to get cold, Sunday I decided to make some chili. I have always been afraid to attempt making chili until I heard that you can buy chili in a box. It’s really a lot better than it sounds. It’s actually just the spices in the box and you add all the good stuff to make the chili your own. Let me tell you, this was REALLY easy to make. I highly recommend making some to keep you warm this winter!
Ingredients:
1 box of Carroll Shelby’s Chili Kit (There are other brands out there that I hear are really good, too)
1 8 oz. can of tomato sauce
1 can of diced tomatoes, (drained)
1 can of rotel
2 8 oz. cans of water
1 lb of browned ground beef, (drain fat)
1 lb of browned stew meat, (drain fat)
Add tomato sauce, diced tomato, rotel, water, spice packet, cayenne pepper, and salt packet in to the crockpot and put on high.
While the sauces are cooking, brown the ground beef, drain the fat.
Brown the stew meat, drain the fat.
Add the meat to the sauce mix and cook on high for three hours.
Add the Masa flour (from the kit) and 1/3 cup of water into the crockpot and cook for another 30 minutes. 
Once it’s cooked, put fritos in a bowl, put the chili on top and then add cheese on top of that. YUMMY Frito Pie!
You can also add additional things if you like to make it your own. I just don’t like all the extras, so this is all I added!
Salted Caramel Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies
For the last few years, we have had a cookie exchange with the girls at work. Every year, I try to make my own cookie. Last year, mine turned out so bad that I had to throw them away. It was a really simple recipe, so I’m not sure what possessed me to attempt to make a cookie from scratch this year. I followed the recipe EXACTLY the way that I found it on The Diary of Dave’s Wife website.
We also do a gift exchange at the party. I brought a leopard print santa hat and an iTunes gift card. I LOVE doing white elephant exchanges, but I always stress about what I’m going to bring. I have decided that everyone needs gift cards, so that is going to be my new go to for the future exchanges. At first I got the movie Elf and a thing of syrup in the exchange, but someone ended up stealing that from me. They didn’t want the syrup, so I ended up going home with syrup, a bottle of wine, and a corkscrew with a mustache top.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup unsalted butter, (softened)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups of all purpose flour
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 cup Kraft caramel bits
1/2 cup crushed pretzels
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
cream the butter and sugars together
Add egg and vanilla and blend it all together
Mix the flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt
Stir in the chocolate chips, caramel bits, and crushed pretzels
Drop the dough on to a cookie sheet. The cookies don’t spread a lot, so you can put them fairly close together. I kind of smooshed them down a little bit on the cookie sheet and then added salt on top of them.
Bake for 8 – 10 minutes or until kind of browned around the edges. (Don’t over bake)
Fabulous after FIFTY 